The Human Soul in Relation to World Evolution

Schmidt Number: S-4867

On-line since: 31st May, 2019

LECTURE IX

Dornach, 17th June 1922

Today I would like to speak about an aspect of
Anthroposophy which closely concerns the being of
man.

It
is obvious that our contact with the world between waking and
sleeping is, to begin with, through our senses. We perceive
different aspects of the world around us through our various
senses. By means of a certain inner soul activity we build up a
picture of the world on the basis of our impressions.
With this I merely want to indicate how anyone may observe the
course and content of his waking state. However, our existence
within the world embraces not only the waking state but also
that of sleep. While we sleep we are, with our soul being and
our `I', outside of our body in a realm which is unknown to
ordinary consciousness.

What I have just said is applicable to present-day man in the
way his soul life has developed since the 15th Century. I have
often indicated the extraordinary importance of this particular
period in mankind's evolution.

The
question arises: What is our relationship, in our sleeping
state, to that realm which is closed at least to our ordinary
consciousness? There are difficulties in describing this
relationship, especially at this point in mankind's
evolution, unless we bear in mind that man has evolved
and has gone through a great many different stages. At present,
in our so-called civilized age we find, when we consider man's
soul life, that he must exert himself considerably when
forming concepts and mental pictures. We are often
thoughtless when we regard earlier periods of human life which
did not have such systems of education as we now find
necessary. We are superficial in the way we look at that
culture which arose, in ancient times, over in the East,
although the human beings were not undergoing education from
childhood as is the case nowadays.

In
present-day Europe it is practically impossible to imagine how
differently education was regarded in the ancient Orient.
Yet things were created of an exalted nature, uplifting to
heart and mind. One need only think of the Oriental
writings such as the Vedas and all that is contained in the
wisdom of the Orient. Today everything originating in mental
activity is evaluated on the basis of the circumstances of a
person's upbringing and education and on what, as a result, he
further accomplishes in life. The necessity to be educated and
well informed is, in the first place, because each individual
today must be able to form his own thoughts about life. Without
this ability he would be lost in the modern world. Man
has actually not yet come very far in the art of formulating
thoughts. It is essential, particularly in the system of
education, that progress is made in furthering the art of
formulating concepts about the external world.

The
necessity for this began already in ancient Greece. In Greece,
though strongly influenced by the Orient, arose the first
cultural life within Europe. A system of education developed
which included a rudimentary cultivation of mental
activity. In the Orient no appeal was made to mental effort and
this still influenced Greek cultural life; in general, no
exertion was made to form one's own mental pictures of
external objects. Socrates
[Socrates,
469-399 B.C. Athenian philosopher.
]
is rightly admired within Western culture as one of the first
to induce people to form their own concepts.

However, it would be quite wrong to conclude that man was
obliged to produce his thoughts by his own effort within the
cultural life of the West, while there was no life of thought
in the Orient. Indeed, a powerful thought life existed
and the further we go back in Oriental culture the stronger and
the more powerful it was. We find already before the
existence of the Vedas and the Vedanta philosophy a powerful
thought life. As I have often pointed out, the Vedas, the
Vedanta philosophy, do not represent the very first
stages — which were not written down — of Oriental
spiritual life. It had all fallen into decadence two or three
millennia ago. People of the Orient today live in the
afterglow of a once quite remarkable thought life, but a
thought life utterly different from ours. We must exert
ourselves — indeed, we have to sweat
inwardly — forgive the crude expression, which is
meant only figuratively — in order to produce our
thoughts, whereas Oriental thought life was inspired.
Thoughts and thought combinations arose in the ancient
Oriental of their own accord. His picture of the world was
inspired in him; he felt that what he thought was bestowed upon
him. Inner exertion in combining thoughts was unknown to him.
Between waking and sleeping he felt that thoughts were granted
him. This colored his whole soul life; he felt grateful to the
Gods that they bestowed thoughts upon him. The Oriental felt
that when, as a human being, thoughts lived within him, it was
because divine spiritual power streamed into him. It was a
completely different attitude to thought life from
ours.

In
ancient times in the Orient the life of thoughts and feelings
were not so separate as they now are for ordinary
consciousness. Because man felt his thoughts bestowed upon him
he also felt uplifted by them and a religious feeling united
itself with every thought. He felt he must approach, with
religious devotion, the powers that bestowed the
readymade thoughts and thought combinations upon him.

If
one seeks the external objective reason why Oriental man
experienced the world in this way, one finds that it is because
his sleep life was different from that of modern man. During
sleep our soul and our `I' abandon the body mainly in the
region of the head; the organs of metabolism and limbs are not
separated from man to the same degree. These parts are still
penetrated by man's `I' and soul being during sleep. I have
often spoken of this but should like to place it before you
once more schematically. Let this be man when awake (see
drawing, left). The `I' and soul being, which I have drawn in
red, penetrate the physical and etheric bodies. It would be
wrong if I drew sleeping man in such a way that I had the
physical and etheric bodies lying on the bed and simply drew
the `I' and astral body (or soul) alongside. I must draw it so
that — when the physical organs and limbs are here
(drawing, right, white lines) — I draw the `I' and soul
being outside man only in relation to the head. For, strictly
speaking, it is only in regard to this region that man in sleep
is separated from his physical and etheric bodies (red).

Diagram 1Click image for large view

When we go back to those ancient times of which we spoke, the
situation was different. During man's sleep the organs of his
head — mainly the system of nerves and that part of the
breathing system that penetrates the head — were the scene
of activity for those divine spiritual beings who were
concerned with the earth.

It
is simply describing the reality to say that in the very
earliest days of mankind's evolution on earth, divine spiritual
beings withdrew from man when he woke up. When he slept they
took up their abode in the human head, which was then bereft of
man's `I' and soul being. During his sleep, divine spiritual
beings carried out their activity in the head. When man woke in
the morning — i.e., when he again sank into his
head — he found the result of this activity. The divine
spiritual beings regulated his nerve processes and worked right
into the blood circulation. Through the ether body they exerted
their influence even in the organic processes in the physical
body. In general, the human beings were not clearly aware of
this. Only those schooled in the Mysteries realized it; the
great masses of humanity experienced it but without full
awareness. Thus, when he woke man found the result of the Gods'
activity in his head. And when he perceived the configuration
of his thoughts, during waking life, it was because during
sleep Gods had been active in his head. Thus, ancient
Oriental man found every morning a heritage left by the Gods
during his sleep, with the consequence that he felt his
thoughts to be inspired within him. He felt the Gods' deeds as
inspiration. In other words, the divine spiritual beings did
not inspire man directly during his waking life; they did it
during his sleep by pursuing their own activity in his
head.

In
those ancient times man's social behavior was induced by
inspiration. Divine spiritual beings could completely regulate
earthly affairs. Through their activity during man's sleep they
brought about a mutual trust among human beings and also
the obedience felt by the great masses towards their leaders,
and so on. There was interaction throughout between the divine
spiritual world and the earthly world in the ancient Orient. It
was possible because man's whole organization was
different.

I
have often mentioned the fact that people nowadays imagine that
throughout history man has always been as he is now. They
assume that the physical nature of his body was the same and
so, too, his soul being and the spirituality of his `I'. When a
modern historian writes about ancient Egypt and deciphers its
documents, then he thinks that though the people were not as
clever as he is, they nevertheless thought, felt and
acted more or less as he does. The view is that if one goes
back far enough then man appears as a kind of higher ape, a
state from which he then progresses to — well, to whatever
the historian imagines. Nevertheless, it is assumed that from
the time historical records began, man has been the same as he
is now. This is assumed both in regard to his thinking, feeling
and willing, and in regard to his etheric-physical
organization.

However, that is not the case; man has altered quite
considerably, also during historical times. Just consider
the instance I mentioned earlier of how the physical
sight of the ancient Greeks differed from ours. They did not
see the color blue as we see it; they saw in fact only the
reddish color shades. Modern man is mistaken when he thinks
that the Greeks, because they were surrounded by beauty,
particularly appreciated the beautiful blue of the sky.
The Greek did not really differentiate between blue and green;
he saw plainly the warm reddish-yellow colors. The sky to him
therefore looked quite different from the way it is seen with
normal consciousness today. The eyes have changed in the course
of mankind's evolution, though in inner subtle ways. In fact,
the whole sense system has become different in the course of
historical times; and in the Orient, in those ancient times we
are considering, the senses were so organized that man
could not be deluded by them, nor did they prevent his devoting
himself to the result of the divine deeds that remained in his
organism when he woke from sleep.

Gradually, man's senses changed and caused him to become so
intensely connected with the external world that the moment he
woke his attention was drawn away from that which as a heritage
was left in his organism. Because man was now differently
organized the Gods no longer carried out their activity
in his head during sleep. This activity no longer furthered
mankind's evolution; had it continued it would not have
benefited man. On the contrary, as man has now, through his
senses, become so strongly absorbed in the external world he
would no longer be able to pay attention to what the Gods
bequeathed to him during the night. Their activity would no
longer be felt as inspiration, and as a consequence of not
being taken into man's consciousness it would flow back
into the body, causing the organism to become old
prematurely.

Man
could live united with the world of the Gods because in ancient
times, unlike today, his senses were not particularly
orientated towards the external world. In his waking state he
could absorb what he had experienced in sleep. This was a real
living with the Gods, for though he could not behold them with
his senses, man, in ancient times, was at least adapted to
experience their deeds.

Later, in the millennium before the Mystery of Golgotha, man's
senses, particularly the eyes, began to develop — also in
the Orient — the sensitivity to external impressions which
they have now. The system of senses gradually developed to what
it later became. At first man retained, in addition, in his
system of nerves, what still enabled him to experience the
divine spiritual deeds. His experience of them had
formerly been in their purity — i.e., not mingled
with sense perceptions. But now they were taken up by the
senses. This had the strange result that for a large part of
mankind the Gods, the spiritual beings, were drawn, as it were,
into the physical organization. In consequence, what had
formerly been a pure spiritual experience of divine
spiritual beings, became a belief in ghosts.

The
belief in ghosts is not so very ancient; what is ancient
is the pure spiritual beholding of divine spiritual beings.
Belief in ghosts arose first through the mingling of sense
perception with beholding the divine. When the culture of
the Oriental Mysteries penetrated into Europe, for example,
into the magnificent spiritual life of Greece, into Greek art
and philosophy, there followed in its wake, also, the seeing of
ghosts by the general masses of people.

Thus, in the last millennium before the Mystery of
Golgotha, the former pure spiritual perception which the
Oriental people possessed, had fallen into decline. It had
become, particularly by large sections of the masses, a kind of
perception of ghosts. This belief in ghosts wandered over into
Europe; in the Orient it had been pure spiritual
perception but had now become transformed into something
physical. Thus, it can be said that the belief in ghosts is the
last offshoot, the end product of a lofty, albeit dreamlike,
spiritual seeing, which had once signified a cultural
flowering in mankind's evolution.

I
have described how in ancient times Oriental people felt that
during sleep the head was the earthly scene of activity
for divine spiritual beings. This was something of which people
in general were dimly aware; those who had undergone
initiation in the Mysteries were fully conscious of the fact.
What I have described has a counterpart in the cultural life
that has since developed.

The
cultural life of more recent times is still in its early
stages. The further West we go the stronger it comes to
expression. To the ancient Oriental it would have made no
sense had he been told that thoughts do not pulsate through the
will. He knew from experience that what lived in his will, and
even in his blood, was something bestowed upon him by the Gods.
They formed his thoughts and during sleep they developed a
powerful force in him which he experienced as
inspiration.

Even today, when we look towards the East, we find, for example
in the philosophy of Soloviev,
[Wladimir Soloviev, 1853-1900. Russian philosopher.
]
the last remnants of how things
were experienced in the past. And, clearly, Soloviev would have
found it incomprehensible if told that thought is not a force
that impels and carries the will. However, it is the opinion
today, especially in America, that thought is not the ruling
factor in man. Physiology and biology as developed in America
are clear demonstrations of this view. When one goes into the
finer details one finds that science in America is, in this
respect, something quite different from that of Europe,
let alone the Orient. Modern man in the Western world is all
too aware that he produces his thoughts himself. Thoughts,
however, must relate to something, so it is maintained that far
more important for man than the thoughts he absorbs, is the
kind of family into which he is born, the way he is brought up,
the political environment in which he grows up, the
religious denomination he might join. All these things
act on his emotions and determine his will. Thus, the will is
supposed not to be directly influenced by thoughts, but is
determined by such environmental factors as family, politics,
country and so on. Thus, in America, in fact, Western man in
general, is of the opinion that thought is not the ruler in
man; at most its position is that of prime minister. The ruler
is the human organism with its instincts and will impulses.
Quoting Carlyle
[Thomas Carlyle,
1795-1881. English philosopher and historian.
]
it is said that thought may be a devoted
minister, but its function is only that of an executive. And it
must be emphasized that today's broad mass of humanity
thinks likewise, shown by its eagerness to confirm that ancient
traditions should be superseded. This is why there is today
such an interest in the study of primitive man. It is
thought that he lived through instincts and desires of which
his thoughts were only a kind of mirror image.

Thus, today Western man looks into his inner being and asks why
it is that he is driven by instincts and cravings. To him they
appear devoid of spirit because he is not yet organized to
perceive the spiritual in them. Yet every instinct or
craving, whether good or bad, is spiritual. It may be a very
evil instinct that comes to expression in one or another
person, but even the most brutal urge is spiritual. The human
race is always in the process of development; it must advance
to such spirituality that when man looks into himself and
perceives his instincts, urges and cravings he sees everywhere
in them the spiritual. This will come about in the future.

It
makes no difference in this respect whether a person has good
or bad instincts; if they are bad it is because either
Luciferic or Ahrimanic spirits hold sway in him. But they are
spirits.

The
assumption that the driving force in man is his instincts
is, as far as being aware of the spiritual reality is
concerned, similar to the earlier assumption in regard to
ghosts. In ancient times spirituality was perceptible to man in
the Orient. As it evolved further it became, as I have
described, in the first millennium before the Mystery of
Golgotha, a belief in ghosts, a perception of ghosts (see
drawing, blue).

Diagram 2Click image for large view

From where we are at present within world evolution we look
back to a time when a belief in ghosts emerged from a former
spirituality; at the same time, we look towards the future and
foresee a time when once again pure spiritual
perception will emerge. But at present we also have a belief in
ghosts, in inner ghosts. Those who believe in outer ghosts fail
to see the spiritual reality in them and regard them as
something that can be seen with physical eyes. Western man
today, when he looks into himself, also fails to see the
spiritual reality. The way he regards instincts, urges
and cravings makes them into ghosts which today precede a
future spirituality (red), while the ghosts of old followed an
earlier spirituality (blue).

One
could also say that from East to West an ancient pure
spirituality developed which was followed, in the course of
time, by a belief in ghosts, of which remnants are still with
us. From West to East, approaching us, a later spirituality is
developing which will become reality in a far distant future.
The way modern man visualizes urges, instincts and
cravings, in which the beginning of the new spirituality
reveals itself, makes them as ghost-like as the former ghosts.
This outlook makes the educated person regard with disdain the
common belief in ghosts. At the same time, he attributes
to man ghost-like instincts, urges and cravings. What he does
not realize is that the belief in ghosts held by the masses,
has as much scientific validity as his belief in desires, urges
and instincts. His belief is in ghosts announcing a new
beginning just as the masses have a belief in ghosts that marks
an ending. Our European civilization has become so chaotic
because it is the scene of collision between the old and
the new ghosts.

In
a West-East aphorism I have briefly characterized how, on the
one hand, modern man has been for some time influenced by the
ancient heritage of Oriental spirituality which has become a
belief in ghosts, and how, on the other hand, he is influenced
by the beginning of a spirituality that is now germinating
which, through a materialistic interpretation, has turned
man's instincts, urges and desires into ghosts. Those which are
usually called ghosts are spirits which appear materialized
through man's organization. The modern ghosts, pointing to the
future, consisting of man's urges, instincts, desires and
passions, have not yet become dematerialized; they have not yet
become spiritual.

Man's inner soul life, particularly in Europe, takes its course
within this peculiar chaotic condition created by the
interaction of old and new ghosts. It is essential that man
attain spiritual insight in order to arrive at a clear
understanding of both. Not only man's view of the world
is dependent upon such insight; but also, human life on earth
as a whole is dependent upon it. That this must be so follows
from the fact that it is not only man's spiritual or cultural
life that is derived from his particular nature; but also, his
life of rights or political life and his economic life.

But
what is the origin of this particular development? I said that
the earthly concern of the Gods, of the divine spiritual
beings, was within the human head. We differentiate threefold
man into the nerve-sense man, whose abode is mainly in
the head, the rhythmic man, who lives in the middle, and the
metabolic-limb man consisting of the limbs and their
continuation inward in the organs of metabolism (see
drawing). We differentiate this threefold man and we know
that during the sleeping state of humanity in ancient times the
Gods, when carrying out their earthly task, made the human head
their scene of action. What is the situation at present?

The
Gods also carry out their activity in present-day humanity
during sleep, but no longer in the head; now it takes place in
the metabolic-limb organism. The significance, the
all-important point about this is, that for man, the
metabolic-limb system remains unconscious also during his
waking state. You will remember how I have often spoken about
the fact that man is awake in his conceptual life, but
completely unaware of what happens deep down in the organism to
cause a muscle to carry out a movement. When present-day man
has a mental picture of lifting his arm
or moving his hand he has, in his ordinary consciousness,
no awareness of how his mental life affects his organism. This
remains unconscious even during the waking state. In
other words, the scene of action of the Gods on earth nowadays
is such that — unlike the situation in ancient times —
man's natural evolution prevents him, to begin with, from taking
possession of the divine heritage when he wakes.

Diagram 3Click image for large view

Divine spiritual processes take place in man, today,
between falling asleep and waking, but his present nature
prevents him from having any impression while awake of
the Gods' activity during sleep. In ancient times, man was so
constituted that his very organization enabled him to feel his
thoughts to be inspired. Present-day man produces his own
thoughts, and divine spiritual deeds do not yet enter into this
activity; mankind must first reach the appropriate stage of
development. This is precisely the task — I would say
cosmic task — which Spiritual Science must set
itself. And a system of education must be part of such a
plan, to enable human beings to recognize, out of their own
effort and in full consciousness, the divine spiritual deeds
within them. When this stage is reached man will also cease to
see his urges and instincts as inner ghosts. The way they are
imagined at present they are as much ghosts as the
external ones. The external ghosts are not mere delusions; they
are divine spiritual forces which appear materialized by being
incorrectly seen through man's senses. The divine
spiritual forces active in man today are seen incorrectly when
they are visualized as urges and instincts.

The
external ghosts are scorned today, but what is looked upon as a
science deals with nothing but inner ghosts. Man must
participate to bring about the transformation intended for him
within cosmic evolution. Impulses in this direction ought to
permeate every aspect of our culture. This would provide the
possibility for man to overcome the forces of decline in their
chaotic interaction with forces of ascent against which man
still fights, and then strive towards the future stages in
mankind's evolution by being inspired and motivated from the
spirit. On this everything depends.

What I have tried to convey to you today can be seen as a kind
of contemplation of the East in relation to the West, though
from an esoteric point of view. Contemplation of East and West
is at present altogether timely — I do not use the
expression in a trivial sense. It is only through such
considerations that mankind can arrive at the relevant
level of consciousness.

Thus, in earlier times of earth evolution during sleep (the
human being is “man” also during sleep when he does
not have his physical body about him) man was in such a
relationship to the Gods that he could behold, with eyes of
soul and spirit, how they took up their abode in his head. In
his waking state all that remained of this experience was a
kind of afterglow in his life of feelings. Man became ever more
distant from the divine spiritual world which he nevertheless
perceived as in a dream when he looked back after having
plunged into the body. That was the earlier situation; later,
he only felt after waking that he was inspired.

Since then the Gods have drawn deeper down, as it were, into
his physical body and man has now entered into such a
connection with the Gods that they make his metabolic-limb
system the scene of their activity within his earthly nature.
However, as man does not completely forsake his earthly nature
during sleep, he will, as a consequence, be able to
experience again — coming from the divine
world — impulses of will and also impulses for his life as
a social being — i.e., for his relationship to other human
beings — not, however, during sleep — he must
experience these spiritual impulses as a complete human being
while awake. It can only be attained through increasing
conscious knowledge of the spiritual world. To attain this must
become man's strongest aim.

This was what I wanted to convey to you as a contribution
to an East-West contemplation.